[September 2001 journal entry]
Turning fifty years old seems to have been pivotal re my attempts to speak and/or write about the ‘non-religious’ approach to ethics and spirituality I am discovering. Prior to turning fifty years old, I hesitated for many years due to concerns not to write prematurely. Since turning fifty years old, I am feeling an increasing urgency to move my various writing projects forward (e.g., the journals, the notes from conversations, the ‘thresholds’ analysis of medical education and medical practice, the ‘scrapheap’ Job material, the patient narratives, the Dutch euthanasia study, the Elkins correspondence, the Korones story, . . . ) due to angst that illness or injury may incapacitate me, leaving these projects unexpressed.